Oprah 'gets real'
2006-12-17 07:58
Los Angeles - Talk show host and media
mogul Oprah Winfrey is venturing into prime-time television
with two new reality series, at least one of which will feature
Winfrey herself, the ABC network and producers said on Friday.
No time frame has been set for the two shows, both
described as combining elements of wish fulfilment and charity
- favourite themes of Winfrey on her long-running daytime talk
programme, the highest rated in broadcast syndication.
The show's concepts were laid out in a joint press release
issued by her Harpo Productions company and the Walt Disney
Co.
The first new series, tentatively titled Oprah Winfrey's
The Big Give, presents 10 people with large sums of money and other resources and challenges them to find "the most powerful, sensational, emotional and dramatic ways to give to others".
The contestants will gradually be narrowed as the group
confronts a "big catch" each week complicating their efforts,
with the winner getting his or her "wildest dream come true".
A similar format figured in a recent two-episode broadcast
of Winfrey's talk show in which she gave members of her studio
audience $1 000 gift cards and implored them to find ways to
help as many people as possible.
A second Winfrey-produced show, this one with the working
title Your Money or Your Life, will dispatch an "expert
action team" each week to help a family overcome a crisis
through a "total money and life makeover".
A Harpo spokesperson said Winfrey planned to appear in at
least one of the two new series, but her exact role had yet to
be decided.
As host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, now in its 21st season
of Monday-through-Friday syndication, she currently averages
about 48 million viewers a week.
Her deal with ABC marks the first foray into prime-time
series television for Winfrey, who has gradually expanded her
presence to a wide range of media in recent years, including
the launch of a successful magazine, satellite radio channel
and Broadway production of The Color Purple.